Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie has challenged Health Secretary Jeane Freeman over the lack of testing being carried out and the overall failure of the SNP government to follow WHO advice.

Speaking in the chamber Ms Baillie highlighted that, despite the First Minister claiming that Scotland now had testing capacity to carry out 15,000 tests a day, only 4,624 tests were carried out on average last week with only 2,729 tests undertaken yesterday and 937 people being tested for the first time.

So far, only around 2.1 per cent of the Scottish population has been tested completely ignoring WHO’s advice to “test, test, test” and unless testing is expanded rapidly Scotland will be unable to move to the “test, trace and isolate” stage.

Commenting, Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said:

“The SNP government has proudly announced the expansion of Scotland’s testing capacity but with the number of tests falling their testing strategy remains ineffective.

“ The WHO has stated that asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus is occurring. Why then are we not testing all asymptomatic frontline health, social care and other key workers regularly?

“Having to change the testing eligibility guidance seven times in three months clearly shows that the Scottish Government got this badly wrong at the start of this pandemic and have been too slow to rectify the situation.

“Without a rapid expansion in testing we cannot move to the “test, trace and isolate” stage and so cannot safely continue to ease the lockdown. It is time for the SNP government to swallow its pride and get to work to expand testing.”